twikga work in progress
Here you will find stories about the making-of my illustrations, the websites and the twikga books. The corona pandemic has been going on for more than a year now. A good time to go through our archives. But like a lot of people we are starting to loose our patience. We are looking forward to travel again. To photograph wildlife in faraway places, to travel to friends and family, go to events, visit museums, to feel free again, instead of locked up…
IFUPA Buch
Das Thema der IFUPA 2022 war BUCH, Überarbeitungen-Memoiren-Utopien. Das twikga BUCH-abenteuer hat fast 10 Jahre gedauert. Inzwischen sind wir nach Holland zurückgezogen. Den twikga Verlag gibt es nicht mehr. Aber die Illustrationen von Tanja Dekker leben fort auf twikga.com Phanhabs Lush Bush war das erste WimmelBUCH was twikga veröffentlicht hat. Für die Postkarte habe ich es überartbeitet und...
Getting my fingers dirty again
Finally, after 5 years I have my own creative workspace again. Moving countries, building a house, getting settled took time and crowded my head. Maybe the lockdown gave me the peace of mind to unpack the boxes which were still in our cellar. I still do not have the peace of mind or inspiration to create really new things, but for now it is great to just get my fingers dirty again. It was great...
Creating Duvel and the 3irds
The corona lockdown gave me the chance to go through my archives and look back on what I have created during the last 10 years. I realized that I have been making phantasy birds for a long time. Birds are everywhere. You see them in your backyard, they wake you on an early spring morning. That makes them easy to study. They are great to create and tell stories with. The first time I created a...
Rebuilding the websites
We are in the process of redesigning and rebuilding our websites. This has turned out to be quite a challenge. Our Wild Picha website had to be rebuilt because adobe decided to stop the support for the software we used. The twikga website for the publishing company in Hamburg was outdated and I wanted to merge it with my illustration website. The ikga twikga blog had been compromised. So we had...
Elephants on the drawing board
This story goes back to 2013. The making of the last twikga book, Tata & Squack - Mission Elephant. Only recently I went through my old sketchbooks and decided to add some of the pages to this post. For more sketchbook galleries have a look under the tag Sketchbook... The making of the next Tata&Squack was in full progress. The pictures we took during our visit to Samburu, Kenya in 2012...
twikga blog relocated
Ikga twikga has found a new home on twikga stories. Ikga twikga was the blog of the twikga publishing company in Hamburg from 2010 until 2016, when the company seized to exist and Tanja and Willem decided to move back to Holland. The content of the blog was very precious to everybody who had worked on the twikga books. It was a kind of "logbook" of the making of the books, the illustrations, the...
Kreativer Abschied
Abschied von Irene. Es fällt mir schwer. Nach mehr als 10 Jahren trennen sich unsere Wege. Ich kam in 2004 zu Irene zur Mappenvorbereitung für mein Studium an der Bildkunst Akademie. Nach meinem Studium war sie mein Creatives Gewissen bei dem Entstehen der Bücher. Später habe ich bei Ihr an meinen Collagen gearbeitet. Viele Montage habe ich zusammen mit verschiedenen creatieven Mitstreitern in...
Writers retreat with Tata, Squack and a red squirrel
A few months ago a dear family member gave me the opportunity to write in his garden studio. It is a small house and a great writers retreat. To write and translate a children's book is a challenge which needs concentration. Like the first book, the new Tata&Squack will be published in three languages. The silence of the garden with a red squirrel as only distraction saved me from getting lost...
Olifant en Uil – Tata&Squack brainstorm in het bos
De herfstbladeren vallen, het is vroeg donker, de potten op het terras weer ingepakt in afwachting van de winter. Na weken alleen achter onze computers gewerkt te hebben aan de nieuwe Tata & Squack afgewisseld met Skype momenten, eindelijk weer eens samen, deze keer in Nederland. Dicht bij de natuur met eekhoorns op de carport hebben we weer genoten van dit live brainstorm moment. De nieuwe Tata...
The making of Phanhabs Savanna’s change of seasons
The illustrations in my books are a mix of photographs, drawings and collages. The picture of the elephants on the left was taken by us in the Masai Mara on one of our safaris. I used it to illustrate the change of seasons in the savanna, where thunderclouds building up announce the rainy season. For the illustration I changed the background of the picture and the light on the elephants became...
